Spent the morning interviewing scholarship applicants for a Leadership Award given by the Cal Alumni.  The future of the Golden State is skinny, soft-spoken, and two-thirds of the time had trouble answering the questions posed.  Two-thirds of the kids in front of me seemed to prefer to try and insert scripted sound bites or neutral blather rather than focus on the actual words of the question.  I’ll take the session to mean that some have spent too much time looking at the current political leadership, and not enough thinking about how they might be able get things done themselves.  Fortunately one-third was different though.  There may be hope yet.

Randy and I made a quick visit to the central coast this weekend, marred only by Diego getting something in his eye and requiring a visit to the local vet in Pismo Beach.  He’s doing fine though, and I was able to grab this video before he became high maintenance.

Dawn Patrol 3: Port San Luis Pier from Chuck Hartley on Vimeo.

Last night the Ancient Chinese Order of Busboys and Frycooks blessed me with the following fortune:

You are a practical person with your feet on the ground [in bed].

With or without the ritual ending I’m really not sure what this means for my life.  Fortunately though the husband’s guidance was a little more direct:

You will have a happy adventure soon [in bed].

Once again, getting up early so that you don’t have to.

Dawn Patrol 2: San Clemente Pier from Chuck Hartley on Vimeo.

DAWN PATROL AT LA JOLLA COVE from Chuck Hartley on Vimeo.

The same video is also on YouTube, for those of you preferring that platform.

The more I see on the looming sequester the more I think the Obama administration has finally adopted the Bush-Cheney model of fear-based governing.  There’s no need to propose a solution as long as enough fear can be instilled and enough panic generated that the opposition will agree to anything ANYTHING to get out of the way of the hordes fleeing whatever today’s horrible outcome happens to be.

Sorry, but I survived the shutdowns of the federal government as an employee overseas in 1995 and 1996, and have seen enough local teachers (husband included) and court staff take furlough days the last few years here in California to know that furlough days will not bring about the end of civilization as we know it.  People and institutions will get by.  We probably won’t have to resort to cannibalism as a society at least until FY 2014.  So, if everyone could just take a deep breath, remember that it was less than a year ago that the President and Congress jointly passed this sequestering option into law, and they can change it any time they agree to do so.

Louie, sibling of Huey and Dewey, passed away this morning after a brief illness.  Louie, which probably should have been Louise, was one of ten fry born in a plastic bag on the way home from Petco a bit over a year ago.  She was probably the mother of ten fry a few months later, seven of which entered careers in public education, but was cared for by Darth, Han and Artoo in her old age.  Her dear friend Felix, the catfish was by her side on the bottom of the tank as she passed.  She was preceded into the great freshwater beyond by Dewey.